Friday Facts #252 - Sound design & Map editor

[Roblin]

this new editor sounds amazing, the thing I would be most interested in using it for and I very much hope can be easily done is advance the simulation tick by tick to finetune and experiment with circuit network logic, especially to figure out where various off-by-one errors arise in sensitive one-tick-pulse timed setups.

a common thing I find for example is that I have a timer that perhaps resets to 1, not 0, because the reset mechanism relies on adding the negative of a sgnal, but in the one tick it takes to calculate the negative, the timer has gone up by one.
another common thing I (and I assume others) do is feed a combinator input from a source as well as from itself, and depending on the color of wire used (same for both or different) the output can end up behaving slightly different, typically with a difference of one.
both of these would be fairly trivial to diagnose and fix if one could advance the simulation tick by tick, but is a bit of a headache parsing rapidly changing signal counts as is.

[Sophdog]

I feared the worst when I read "No-one uses the map editor". I use it! I do! In fact I'm currently playing one of my creations (peaceful, no biters), just to be able to create the most massive base possible, i.e. huge square resource patches (easy to line up nice neat rows of mining drills), vast swathes of concrete etc.

My point here is I am hoping what I've read indicates that I will be able to copy/paste large groups of assemblers, miners, forges etc, complete with their belts or logistic chests etc. In-game I am laying down blueprints with say 4k belts, 1k forges or or 2k mining drills - blueprints that barely fit on my big screen. Laying everything down one item at a time in the editor, even with scrolling and holding down the cursor takes a huge amount of time, so copy/pasting "blueprints" will help a lot.

Also helpful - extremely helpful in fact - would be the ability (in the editor) to fill a chest with all of the same item with one click. Currently, if I want to set up 200 provider chests with blue belts, or say 60 chests with yellow assemblers, I have to do it one stack at a time. So, I shift-click 48 times, just to fill one red chest with blue belts, and it takes hours to fill them all. I've tried all manner of shift/control/alt clicking, and still can only add one stack at a time to a chest. If there is a command to do this, please let me know, or please add this functionality to the editor. Similarly, fill a roboport with logistic robots with one click, instead of seven shift-clicks. That would be awesome. Even better? Fill one chest with one click command, then copy/paste the contents to the other 199 chests!!!

As you can see, I'm working in gargantuan scales, laying down blueprints containing thousands of entities, so something in the editor that works similarly to blueprints will help a lot. Setting up a 6 Gigawatt solar farm took me several days, mainly because of the tedium of watching the screen scroll back and forth in a blur as I laid down panels and accumulators etc for hours on end. I hope these suggestions are helpful, and thanks for creating one of the greatest computer games of all time

[equitime77]

I really like the idea of the new sounds. The game needs them. I also wonder if you are going to make the game brighter? After probably maybe a thousand? hours of playing it I would really appreciate it. My monitor is on its brightest and it can be difficult to see the sprites? on the assemblers for example.

[Gergely]

What the heck are those?!


Also, Does the "Lua" option mean I can finally script in-game? Would random generated scenarios be supported? (Like ones that ask you to generate a world on start.)

There is a minor issue I know of in the current crappy map editor: You can't reverse loaders.

[RobertTerwilliger]

I hope there won't be any birds on bug planet : )

The other thing, I think, map editor's import tool shouldn't be restricted to singleplay, as people may want to team-make scenarios, thus they may want to make "modules" in singleplay in between coop-creative sessions, and then add what they've created to the main map.

[eradicator]

I hope there won't be any birds on bug planet : ).

Why not. I bet the bugs'll find them delicious.

[RobertTerwilliger]

I hope there won't be any birds on bug planet : ).

Why not. I bet the bugs'll find them delicious.

Lol, that's for sure, and that's one of reasons, why no birds should be there (left))))

Anyways, one more thing about editor import: I'd make it somewhat similar to blueprint mechanics: let players load desired map to special frame, and allow them to scroll it and copy-paste from it - then it shouldn't cause any sync issues (I think)), because other players will NOT download imported map itself.
Possibly add an option to disable importing in "editor mode toggle"

[Paul17041993]

Flying bugs anyone...?

[Oktokolo]

Flying bugs anyone...?

That would be the next obvious step of evolution. There should be some small airborne bugs.

[xtertristl]

Spawners redesign in HR (Albert)
We are also working in parallel with Ernestas, who is improving the look of the enemies. Right now we can show a sneak peek of how the new spawners look in HR. Together with TOGoS, we are working in a more specific map generation in order to improve the composition of the nests. The intention is to generate a special ambience for those areas that makes you feel like you are in enemy territory.

I'm a little confused as to why the area around the spawns would look alien and the rest of the world looks very earth like... Aren't we the invaders shouldn't the whole planet look alien and maybe as we expand and toil with the land have it change to then become more earth like?

Edit: Or are the bugs alien too.

[bobingabout]

Is that where they come out of the nest?
You know, like the door.


I can't help but think this needs changing now, can't unsee...

[mrvn]

Two things about the cannon:

1) The bore should be lower when moving and preferably resting on something.
2) Where is the recoil? The bore absorbes some of the force but the carriage could rock a little.

[Bergzwerg]

i'm so excited for the editor upgrades!

this will eliminate map layout problems i usually have on a playthrough

much love <3

[Gergely]

Is that where they come out of the nest?
You know, like the door.


I can't help but think this needs changing now, can't unsee...

What's wrong with having a door on the nest? Why would it need to change?

Also thanks for answering my question. I don't really see what's so funny about them. They are doors. Bugs come out of them. They only need like a "birth" animation or something.


Oooh! It's a nice touch that now there are now more than one sprite for the nests. They are kinda repetitive in 0.16

[Jan11]

I know there is written "sound design" but I have to say "Music too" puuh the Music is a little bit boring? Sorry but it`s one of the first things what I turn out in Factorio. (Normally I don`t do that in games)

[Oktokolo]

Oooh! It's a nice touch that now there are now more than one sprite for the nests. They are kinda repetitive in 0.16

The different sprites are rendered from the same model though.

[Gergely]

Oooh! It's a nice touch that now there are now more than one sprite for the nests. They are kinda repetitive in 0.16

The different sprites are rendered from the same model though.

[Oktokolo]

Oooh! It's a nice touch that now there are now more than one sprite for the nests. They are kinda repetitive in 0.16

The different sprites are rendered from the same model though.

Don't worry. Sprites are modable and Wube will probably render their spawner sprites from multiple models when they declare the game finished.

[Broskev]

I love the possibility to influence the simulation rate tick by tick.

[Light]

I appreciate the effort to improve the biter nests given biters seldom get any love.

The desaturation helps blend it into the environment much nicer while also feeling more alien in contrast to our currently very bright and cheerful bubbles. Hopefully the HD biters will also look more alien instead of something you'd put on a plate in their update.